What's new in Cordova 3.5.0 for Firefox OS

The Cordova community recently released version 3.5.0 of the tools. This version includes some exciting improvements to the Firefox OS development workflow. Before we dive into the new features, make sure you have the latest version by running:

Cordova has a configuration file called config.xml that already contains the same information needed for the manifest file. Cordova will create and update the manifest based on your config.xml file. In the new version, plugins can add configuration specifying which permissions are necessary. Whenever you run a cordova prepare, the manifest is updated based on your configuration. Now you can have all your app’s information in one place.

Building packages with Cordova

Firefox OS uses web technologies that do not require a compilation step to generate binaries. The related Cordova commands build and compile were left unimplemented and would throw an exception when called. That behavior was confusing and left some people wondering what went wrong.

Now cordova build or Cordova compile will create a zip of your packaged app in the build folder inside the platform/firefoxos folder. A big thank you to the contributor Gert-Jan Braas for implementing this!

Plugins

A fresh batch of core plugins were released too. We added Firefox OS support to a few more plugins:

What’s next

A highly requested feature is support for emulate and run Cordova commands. We are working with the Dev Tools team to create an awesome experience for debugging Cordova applications using Firefox’s App Manager. Here is a sneak preview of what’s coming!

Meanwhile you can debug your app by adding the platforms/firefoxos/www folder to the app manager in Firefox. For more information, check out Cordova for Firefox OS on MDN.

We are working on creating default icons for a newly created app. They will serve as placeholders that can be easily replaced with your app’s brand.

Works on Mozilla's cross-platform apps team improving Firefox OS support for Cordova and PhoneGap. Passionate about making the web an even better platform for developers. Loves snowboarding, BBQ and beer.

Jason Weathersby is a Technical Evangelist for Mozilla, evangelizing Firefox OS. He is also a committer on the BIRT project at the Eclipse Foundation, and has co-authored several books on BIRT integration. He is a proponent of HTML5, Open Source and all things related to web-based gaming.